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People are so unbelievably disrespectful with noise in the US. Peaceful hike? Here's Katy Perry crackling out of my iPhone at full blast! Luxury apartment at $4

People are so unbelievably disrespectful with noise in the US. Peaceful hike? Here's Katy Perry crackling out of my iPhone at full blast! Luxury apartment at $4k a month? No insulation between units, and the guy above you comes home at 2am and never takes his shoes off. Small country street? Here comes Chad with his straight-piped civic with the muffler removed!

gotaquestion 5y ago
Want to go to the beach? Well here's Toby Keith on your left, Christian Radio on your right, Mariachi in front of you, and Ye behind you. I want all beaches to be public, but then I hate public beaches. meirl.
gonehome 5y ago
I find by far the biggest disruption in US suburbs is lawn equipment. Suburbs are louder than cities imo because there is always a leaf blower, lawn mower, and weedwacker going at all times during the day within 100 yards of you. Often for hours. Moving from Palo Alto to SF things got way quieter.
- Forgeties79 5y ago
  It drives me absolutely insane. I can’t record audio virtually anywhere unless I treat the hell out of the room. I shouldn’t have to turn my room into a soundproof bunker to be able to record some voiceovers. It’s ridiculous. My previous home office had spray foam insulation with double layer sheet rock and bass traps on the walls, yet I still had to have a small homemade box around the microphone when I was doing any sort of voice work that wasn’t more informal.
  - gonehome 5y ago
    Yeah - the joke is people say they move to suburbs to get 'peace and quiet' compared to a loud city, but city life is so much quieter (at least where I live). I'm sure that's not always the case, but I really hated the lawn equipment. Sure in a city a loud motorcycle may go by, but that's like 10 seconds of noise? Compared to a revving leaf blower for an hour (and usually there are a bunch of them going). They're even banned in Palo Alto, but it's not enforced.
    - cgriswald 5y ago
      > They're even banned in Palo Alto, but it's not enforced. They only banned gas-powered blowers and they seem to rely on citizens to report use.
- sarchertech 5y ago
  >Suburbs are louder than cities imo because there is always a leaf blower, lawn mower, and weedwacker going at all times during the day within 100 yards of you. That's hugely hyperbolic. But in the city there really are constant sirens, car horns, diesel trucks, construction noises, roadway noise etc... The most comprehensive study done on this (admittedly a long time ago in 1970) shows a clear correlation between population density and noise pollution. https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/pubs/gtr/gtr_ne25/gtr_ne25_183.pdf https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/pubs/gtr/gtr_ne25/gtr_ne25_183.pdf I think the most likely explanation is that you moved from a particularly noisy suburban neighborhood to a particularly quiet urban one.
  - gonehome 5y ago
    It does sound ridiculous but I’ve lived in DC, London, and SF now and all were quieter than the suburbs I’ve lived in. Mostly because of lawn stuff and garbage pickup. Also probably a factor that I’ve been in new city buildings with good insulation and not on the ground floor.
    - sarchertech 5y ago
      If the insulation isn’t the same, you can’t really compare the 2. I could take a nap in an active construction site with good enough earplugs. Garbage pickup is once a week, and the truck is close enough for me to hear it for maybe 15 minutes. Double that for recycling pickup. I live a few miles from the city center, in just about the densest area where people still have lawns. There are maybe 5 houses close enough to me that I could hear a leaf blower from if I’m inside the house (loud enough to notice). Even if each one runs a lawnmower and leaf blower for half an hour each week, that’s 2.5 hours per week tops (only 2 of them actually use leaf blowers, and most only cut the grass 1x every 2 weeks). Also in most of the country mowing only happens a little more than half the year. Compare that with road noise, and sirens, which I hear far more often.
      - burntoutfire 5y ago
        > Garbage pickup is once a week, and the truck is close enough for me to hear it for maybe 15 minutes. Double that for recycling pickup. Around me, there are three different recycling pickups (one for the each kind of recyclable). Combined with regular trash pickup, it means that the garbage truck is here on most work days.
- bogota 5y ago
  They may be louder but do you have a dump truck waking you up at 4am several times a week? I really don’t know what to do anymore. Obviously they need to pick up trash that early to beat the traffic and save a few bucks /s. But the city doesn’t care and I’m constantly told that condos/apartments are a more sustainable way of living. Thats great but I’m about done with this nonsense and about to move out to the burbs so I can sleep through the night.
  - oauea 5y ago
    Do yourself a favor and get some earplugs
    - saila 5y ago
      Earplugs do essentially nothing to stop low frequency sounds. I can block out a lot of noise with white/pink/brown noise, but the only thing that will stop sounds you can feel, whether it’s an idling truck or a sound system cranked up, is substantial mass and/or decoupling from the source.
      - javert 5y ago
        i got these Bose QuietComfort noise cancelling earbuds, and they are like magic, cancelling out bass noise from nearby outdoor stereos. i can't believe how well they work. I live by the beach where people play loud music---the concrete walls do OK for the midrange and treble noises, but not the bass.
        JohnHaugeland 5y ago
        The person you're replying to is talking about feeling in their body, not hearing in their ears.
        javert 5y ago
        I see what you're saying, but I think that's too narrow of a reading of his comment, but it doesn't really matter.
- angled 5y ago
  Relevant New Yorker article: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/25/blowback https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/25/blowback
- mechanical_bear 5y ago
  I fucking loathe leaf blowers. I can tell what day of the week it is by which neighbor is going for an hour or two straight with the leaf blower. Get a damn rake!
  - pjerem 5y ago
    Ah, leaf blowers. The planet is warming and still, the little hooman burns oil to move leafs forward, waking up the entire neighborhood. Those things should be banned worldly.
    - ungamedplayer 5y ago
      I can't find it, but I remember the story of an individual who lead a crusade against leaf blowers and was somewhat successful.
  - sicromoft 5y ago
    Leaf blowers are the worst. Several cities in CA have banned them. I don't know why more haven't followed suit. There's a myth that groundskeeping is more costly without them, but the city of LA reported that costs didn't significantly increase after banning them.[1] [1] https://www.dailybreeze.com/2018/08/21/redondo-beach-bans-leaf-blowers-spreads-word-to-homeowners-and-gardeners/ https://www.dailybreeze.com/2018/08/21/redondo-beach-bans-le...
    - mechanical_bear 5y ago
      I’m in Folsom, Ca. I wish they were banned here.
    - grvdrm 5y ago
      I live just north of NYC in suburbs and leaf blower bans are never enforced. Not worth the time of the town or the city to bother dealing with the rules they create. It stinks.
    - moduspol 5y ago
      > There's a myth that groundskeeping is more costly without them A... myth? Have you ever used a rake, and a leaf blower? How about for many hours? If there's no change in costs when switching between the two, it's getting hidden or absorbed somewhere. It takes substantially less time and effort to use a leaf blower than a rake for the vast majority of tasks that call for either.
- calvinmorrison 5y ago
  This is a joke right? I should keep a diary. Someone did a study and apparently the 'city that never sleeps' (NYC) has better sound quality than my city (PHL). Between inept and behind by 115 years and counting on gas line repairs and ATV squads... not to mention the broken exhaust fan of the corner pizza joint, one cannot exist in Philadelphia and expect a modicum of peaceful bliss.
- CalRobert 5y ago
  Nevermind giant pickup trucks rumbling down the streets.
- Donckele 5y ago
  Leaf blowing to the other side and then another leaf blower needed to blow it back. Madness.
- wellthisisgreat 5y ago
  It baffles me that cars with ultra-loud stereos that trigger car alarms are legal and people who drive them aren’t fined regularly. The tradition of speaking in public using phone’s loudspeaker is the close second in terms of cultural inadequacy
- dghughes 5y ago
  In my small town pop. 50,000 Sundays were super quiet no stores open, no lawnmowers. But the lawnmowers not running wasn't a law it was an unwritten rule agreed upon by all. Now everything is open on Sundays and Sundays are noisy with lawnmowers. To me it changes the mental end of the week cleanse. When the routine of nearly everyone gets changed it affects everyone. My generation going back to my father's and before kept Sundays quiet. Nothing to do with religion it was just a day everyone seemed to agree was the quiet day. Now in the past 10 or 15 years it's changed dramatically.
- nickjj 5y ago
  > Often for hours. It really is, if you're on a block where a bunch of people use a maintenance service it's very possible to have 2-3 hours of commercial leaf blowers at least once a week for a few months. It could be twice a week if you happen to have a situation where let's say the east and west side of your block each have 4-5 houses who use a service but the middle doesn't. That usually means 2 different crews will independently do it at different times. The block itself might only be a few hundred feet (10x quarter acre properties on each side) so it's extremely noisy for everyone on the block. Then factor in being kind of close to a fire house and there's a massively loud siren every day at noon and random sirens / fire trucks for emergencies. Oh you live 3 miles from a small airport? Ok, there's going to be planes flying in / out almost all the time. Oh yeah, did you know they do helicopter training every Monday and Thursday night from 8pm to 10pm, so now you get to have your house shaken every 10-15 minutes while a helicopter flies a few hundred feet over your block while doing laps. And you have trees too where Blue Jays love to pretty consistently squawk. That sounds like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6P7k4np0Js https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6P7k4np0Js, but it carries far. Once one of them starts, it's like a chain reaction for 15 minutes. Even with windows closed and headphones on it's easy to hear it. I've had to stop recording videos because even a dynamic mic (very directional) will pick it up. Suburbs are really loud.
  - mannykannot 5y ago
    I feel the average leaf in our neighborhood gets blown off a lawn four or five times before it decays or gets bagged. It's a great business model! I suck up and chop the thicker drifts with an electric vacuum device, and mulch them. There is some noise, but no-one can hear it over the blowers. Two sound sources that don't bother me at all are songbirds and kids playing.
- albrewer 5y ago
  Don't forget circular saws, nail guns, and your neighbor's project car that hasn't had a muffler in 3 years.
theonething 5y ago
and the dogs. Don't forget about the fucking barking dogs that get left alone outside all day long and sometimes into the night as well.
- WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
  That and hours of bass. It's really hard to tell which one is worse.
moralestapia 5y ago
Over time, I've found that the most expensive real estate feature is silence.
- throwaway378037 5y ago
  Been looking at property in London recently due to a horrible renting situation, and can confirm: properties that are reasonably quiet are priced considerably higher for the same floor area/spec
aaron695 5y ago
letitbeirie 5y ago
I've seriously thought about going hiking with a raspi running something that really wants to get friendly with any Bluetooth devices in range.
spaetzleesser 5y ago
Pumping gas? Have some meaningless commercials blaring at you. Wait at the doctors? Have some hospital commercials blaring at you. A/C systems are often brutally loud.
- ray__ 5y ago
  Pro tip: one of the grey unlabeled buttons next to the screens on gas pumps mutes the audio. Muting those ads every time I pump gas feels like a subversive act in a dystopian Bladerunner-esqe society where ads are inescapable unless you know the hacks.
  - reydequeso 5y ago
    Yes, it is usually the 2nd button from the top. I've usually found it on the right side.
crooked-v 5y ago
> Luxury apartment at $4k a month? No insulation between units, and the guy above you comes home at 2am and never takes his shoes off. With this one you're getting into the intersection with US cities' rabid opposition to actually building enough housing, so new units become labeled 'luxury' whether or not they're actually luxury, because zoning and permitting requirements push the prices of new units into the stratosphere.
- mastercheif 5y ago
  New construction apartments in NYC are horrid places to call a home. They’ve shrunk the average unit size by 100-200 sq/ft (10-20 sq/m), switched to “luxury vinyl plank” flooring, use PTAC HVAC units (the type that you would find at a motel), have paper thin walls between adjacent units, and to top it all off are shoddily constructed due to the rampant use of non-union labor which is working under unreasonable timelines to build out the apartments so the developer can start making money ASAP. The Long Island City neighborhood is ground zero for this. Studios going for $3k a month that are no bigger than a dorm room. And then there’s the noise pollution. The proliferation of delivery apps has caused an explosion in the number of gas powered scooters on the streets. Many of the delivery scooter riders enjoy “souping up” their rides by removing/modifying the mufflers and driving as recklessly as possible. Due to the giant holes in the walls left by the PTAC units you can hear them wizzing by every few minutes from 2PM to 11PM. And then there’s the “fart cars”, dirt bikes, and ATV gangs, but those have already been addressed by others.
shpongled 5y ago
Hiking is what gets me the most. I go outside to be in nature, not hear music. Not to mention that everyone owns earbuds these days...
halfdan 5y ago
As someone who had to travel to the bay area for years I'll add: Caltrain honking its way through all suburbs, even at night.
- mrwh 5y ago
  Oh my word the caltrain! I had no idea before I moved here. I live miles away from the track now, and I can still hear it.
- occz 5y ago
  This can be remedied with proper grade separation - when there are no crossings, no honking is necessary.
greggman3 5y ago
> guy above you comes home at 2am and never takes his shoes off He shouldn't have to IMO. Building codes should require buildings to be sound proof between units. Yea, I know that's dreaming but I've lived in such units. I once lived in an apartment in LA. It was the first apartment in my life that had an in-unit washer and dryer. I asked the guy showing me the apartment "I'll bet I shouldn't run that after 10pm". He responded "These apartments were built as condos and they have double concrete walls between units so your neighbors won't hear you. Feel free to run them anytime day or night". And, the 18 months I was there I never heard a noise from any other unit. Conversely, I lived in a fairly typical SF place. Older and not designed for sound proofing. It was so bad that I mostly stayed out of my bedroom because the just being in it the guy downstairs would complain. Basically all I ever did was walk in, climb in bed. When I woke up, get out of the room. I felt for the guy, it must have been like a drum but at the same time I shouldn't have not been able to live in my apartment (oh, and I didn't wear shoes). I had a guest room. Every single guest (friends, not AirBnB) would get yelled at their first night just trying to change out of their clothing into their pajamas. The funniest one was a girl moved in downstairs. One night at 3am I moved my bed about 4 inches. A single move not making a sound for more than 1-2 seconds. The next morning she came up to bitch me out of waking her up. I told her I didn't complain about hearing her masturbate every night. I just put on my headphones and checked in 20 minutes. She moved out the next day. I feel like the law should have made the landlord make that apartment more sound proof. In my current place there's an industrial air conditioner running on the building next door. It runs 24/7 even though no one has been in the building during COVID. With any window open it's around 60db which is fine maybe when you're awake but it sucks when you're drying to go to sleep. With the windows closed it basically sounds like someone is running a vacuum cleaner in the room next door, all night. Further, some, the city, or some company, comes by at 4am and empties trash cans. The pick them up and bang them. It takes them ~10 minutes to get them all. Everyone in the building has complained and AFAICT both of these are illegal. https://www.sfdph.org/dph/files/ehsdocs/ehsnoise/guidelinesnoiseenforcement.pdf https://www.sfdph.org/dph/files/ehsdocs/ehsnoise/guidelinesn... But so far it's been impossible to get anything enforced.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  > It runs 24/7 even though no one has been in the building during COVID. With modern buildings, where all windows and walls are completely airtight and there is no natural draft any more because of energy efficiency, the buildings would start to mold if you turned off the ventilation.
dan-robertson 5y ago
Conversely, if you turn on your tumble dryer after 11pm in Switzerland and your neighbours hear, expect them to call the police.
- tpm 5y ago
  That's the country of my dreams! Seriously though, people should understand that night is for sleeping and walls do not offer perfect sound insulation. Everything you do can be heard and can disturb someones sleep. I struggle with this all my life.
  - shados 5y ago
    The problem is that lack of sleep is almost a badge of honor these days. Saying you need sleep makes you sound fussy/weak, when it's virtually as important as needing to drink or breath. We should be protecting sleep quality like we protect water quality...which I guess considering how bad the water is in certain parts, may not be the best analogy.
- eertami 5y ago
  >tumble dryer after 11pm Or on a Sunday... :) Although the washing machine/dryer are usually in a utility room in the basement, shared between everyone in the building, which makes it a bit harder to just turn on.
jraph 5y ago
> People are so unbelievably disrespectful with noise in the US What stroke me the most during my trip to the US (Chicago) was: - the constant police sirens - the fact that cars come with a feature that allows you to find them with their key by making them honk. Here it is forbidden to honk in cities (though people do it all the time, sigh).
- WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
  > the fact that cars come with a feature that allows you to find them with their key by making them honk. Equally awesome is a beepy, late-shift neighbor who's driveway is right by your bedroom window.
ubercore 5y ago
Moving from a mid-sized city in the Northeast to a mid-sized city in Norway (relatively big one for Norway) has really made me realize how loud cities are in the US!
poisonarena 5y ago
heh.. wait to you live anywhere in south america
RicoElectrico 5y ago
We call them "DJs without headphones" in Poland. They're [1] obnoxious in public transport. Now, I often considered speaking up, but figured out that if they're such a retard to do this, they probably won't listen and it could end up badly. [1] Or maybe had been, seems they're on decline. Albeit when powerful BT speakers were all the rage (like JBL Flip), they were overused in public spaces as well.
- mdp2021 5y ago
  > I often considered speaking up, but If you have to "slap"¹ someone, and you will have to least you live in the desert, you will have to learn how to do it and to do it properly - effectively, proportionately, optimally. If you don't, then it's downfall in your quality of live and everyone else, and the environment and property value. It's the foundation of civilization to pull each other up towards civilized behaviour. Those areas in which reciprocal correction left way to "anything goes", I have seen, have decayed to rubble (and from heights). (¹Yes, reference.)
  - RicoElectrico 5y ago
    I don't get the "slap" reference. To be honest, my hesitation is based on the number of local news articles that surface every so often. There's an alarmingly high number of Google results when you search for "zwrócił uwagę pobili" (he made a remark, they have beaten him) [0] This may be in general a cultural factor. Even in non-violent contexts some people just do not want to be told what to do. I think Sarmatism [1] echoes to this day in many layers of the society in the form of ill-understood "freedom" [2] Now, I may be selling Polish society short, most people are reasonably polite and the above are deviations, not the norm. But these deviations are still visible. [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=zwr%C3%B3ci%C5%82+uwag%C4%99+pobili https://www.google.com/search?q=zwr%C3%B3ci%C5%82+uwag%C4%99... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarmatism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarmatism [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Liberty#Proverb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Liberty#Proverb
- seattle_spring 5y ago
  A lot of folks inexplicably defend these "DJs without headphones." I've seen some go so far as to claim being against them is an act of, yes, racism.
oliv__ 5y ago
Glad to know I'm not alone: noise affects me disproportionately (both positive and negative -- good music is bliss to me) and the US definitely feels like the wild west when it comes to noise control
amelius 5y ago
> People are so unbelievably disrespectful with noise in the US. People from the US even speak louder :)

gotaquestion 5y ago

Want to go to the beach? Well here's Toby Keith on your left, Christian Radio on your right, Mariachi in front of you, and Ye behind you. I want all beaches to be public, but then I hate public beaches. meirl.

gonehome 5y ago

I find by far the biggest disruption in US suburbs is lawn equipment. Suburbs are louder than cities imo because there is always a leaf blower, lawn mower, and weedwacker going at all times during the day within 100 yards of you. Often for hours. Moving from Palo Alto to SF things got way quieter.

Forgeties79 5y ago
It drives me absolutely insane. I can’t record audio virtually anywhere unless I treat the hell out of the room. I shouldn’t have to turn my room into a soundproof bunker to be able to record some voiceovers. It’s ridiculous. My previous home office had spray foam insulation with double layer sheet rock and bass traps on the walls, yet I still had to have a small homemade box around the microphone when I was doing any sort of voice work that wasn’t more informal.
- gonehome 5y ago
  Yeah - the joke is people say they move to suburbs to get 'peace and quiet' compared to a loud city, but city life is so much quieter (at least where I live). I'm sure that's not always the case, but I really hated the lawn equipment. Sure in a city a loud motorcycle may go by, but that's like 10 seconds of noise? Compared to a revving leaf blower for an hour (and usually there are a bunch of them going). They're even banned in Palo Alto, but it's not enforced.
  - cgriswald 5y ago
    > They're even banned in Palo Alto, but it's not enforced. They only banned gas-powered blowers and they seem to rely on citizens to report use.
sarchertech 5y ago
>Suburbs are louder than cities imo because there is always a leaf blower, lawn mower, and weedwacker going at all times during the day within 100 yards of you. That's hugely hyperbolic. But in the city there really are constant sirens, car horns, diesel trucks, construction noises, roadway noise etc... The most comprehensive study done on this (admittedly a long time ago in 1970) shows a clear correlation between population density and noise pollution. https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/pubs/gtr/gtr_ne25/gtr_ne25_183.pdf https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/pubs/gtr/gtr_ne25/gtr_ne25_183.pdf I think the most likely explanation is that you moved from a particularly noisy suburban neighborhood to a particularly quiet urban one.
- gonehome 5y ago
  It does sound ridiculous but I’ve lived in DC, London, and SF now and all were quieter than the suburbs I’ve lived in. Mostly because of lawn stuff and garbage pickup. Also probably a factor that I’ve been in new city buildings with good insulation and not on the ground floor.
  - sarchertech 5y ago
    If the insulation isn’t the same, you can’t really compare the 2. I could take a nap in an active construction site with good enough earplugs. Garbage pickup is once a week, and the truck is close enough for me to hear it for maybe 15 minutes. Double that for recycling pickup. I live a few miles from the city center, in just about the densest area where people still have lawns. There are maybe 5 houses close enough to me that I could hear a leaf blower from if I’m inside the house (loud enough to notice). Even if each one runs a lawnmower and leaf blower for half an hour each week, that’s 2.5 hours per week tops (only 2 of them actually use leaf blowers, and most only cut the grass 1x every 2 weeks). Also in most of the country mowing only happens a little more than half the year. Compare that with road noise, and sirens, which I hear far more often.
    - burntoutfire 5y ago
      > Garbage pickup is once a week, and the truck is close enough for me to hear it for maybe 15 minutes. Double that for recycling pickup. Around me, there are three different recycling pickups (one for the each kind of recyclable). Combined with regular trash pickup, it means that the garbage truck is here on most work days.
bogota 5y ago
They may be louder but do you have a dump truck waking you up at 4am several times a week? I really don’t know what to do anymore. Obviously they need to pick up trash that early to beat the traffic and save a few bucks /s. But the city doesn’t care and I’m constantly told that condos/apartments are a more sustainable way of living. Thats great but I’m about done with this nonsense and about to move out to the burbs so I can sleep through the night.
- oauea 5y ago
  Do yourself a favor and get some earplugs
  - saila 5y ago
    Earplugs do essentially nothing to stop low frequency sounds. I can block out a lot of noise with white/pink/brown noise, but the only thing that will stop sounds you can feel, whether it’s an idling truck or a sound system cranked up, is substantial mass and/or decoupling from the source.
    - javert 5y ago
      i got these Bose QuietComfort noise cancelling earbuds, and they are like magic, cancelling out bass noise from nearby outdoor stereos. i can't believe how well they work. I live by the beach where people play loud music---the concrete walls do OK for the midrange and treble noises, but not the bass.
      - JohnHaugeland 5y ago
        The person you're replying to is talking about feeling in their body, not hearing in their ears.
        javert 5y ago
        I see what you're saying, but I think that's too narrow of a reading of his comment, but it doesn't really matter.
angled 5y ago
Relevant New Yorker article: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/25/blowback https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/25/blowback
mechanical_bear 5y ago
I fucking loathe leaf blowers. I can tell what day of the week it is by which neighbor is going for an hour or two straight with the leaf blower. Get a damn rake!
- pjerem 5y ago
  Ah, leaf blowers. The planet is warming and still, the little hooman burns oil to move leafs forward, waking up the entire neighborhood. Those things should be banned worldly.
  - ungamedplayer 5y ago
    I can't find it, but I remember the story of an individual who lead a crusade against leaf blowers and was somewhat successful.
- sicromoft 5y ago
  Leaf blowers are the worst. Several cities in CA have banned them. I don't know why more haven't followed suit. There's a myth that groundskeeping is more costly without them, but the city of LA reported that costs didn't significantly increase after banning them.[1] [1] https://www.dailybreeze.com/2018/08/21/redondo-beach-bans-leaf-blowers-spreads-word-to-homeowners-and-gardeners/ https://www.dailybreeze.com/2018/08/21/redondo-beach-bans-le...
  - mechanical_bear 5y ago
    I’m in Folsom, Ca. I wish they were banned here.
  - grvdrm 5y ago
    I live just north of NYC in suburbs and leaf blower bans are never enforced. Not worth the time of the town or the city to bother dealing with the rules they create. It stinks.
  - moduspol 5y ago
    > There's a myth that groundskeeping is more costly without them A... myth? Have you ever used a rake, and a leaf blower? How about for many hours? If there's no change in costs when switching between the two, it's getting hidden or absorbed somewhere. It takes substantially less time and effort to use a leaf blower than a rake for the vast majority of tasks that call for either.
calvinmorrison 5y ago
This is a joke right? I should keep a diary. Someone did a study and apparently the 'city that never sleeps' (NYC) has better sound quality than my city (PHL). Between inept and behind by 115 years and counting on gas line repairs and ATV squads... not to mention the broken exhaust fan of the corner pizza joint, one cannot exist in Philadelphia and expect a modicum of peaceful bliss.
CalRobert 5y ago
Nevermind giant pickup trucks rumbling down the streets.
Donckele 5y ago
Leaf blowing to the other side and then another leaf blower needed to blow it back. Madness.
wellthisisgreat 5y ago
It baffles me that cars with ultra-loud stereos that trigger car alarms are legal and people who drive them aren’t fined regularly. The tradition of speaking in public using phone’s loudspeaker is the close second in terms of cultural inadequacy
dghughes 5y ago
In my small town pop. 50,000 Sundays were super quiet no stores open, no lawnmowers. But the lawnmowers not running wasn't a law it was an unwritten rule agreed upon by all. Now everything is open on Sundays and Sundays are noisy with lawnmowers. To me it changes the mental end of the week cleanse. When the routine of nearly everyone gets changed it affects everyone. My generation going back to my father's and before kept Sundays quiet. Nothing to do with religion it was just a day everyone seemed to agree was the quiet day. Now in the past 10 or 15 years it's changed dramatically.
nickjj 5y ago
> Often for hours. It really is, if you're on a block where a bunch of people use a maintenance service it's very possible to have 2-3 hours of commercial leaf blowers at least once a week for a few months. It could be twice a week if you happen to have a situation where let's say the east and west side of your block each have 4-5 houses who use a service but the middle doesn't. That usually means 2 different crews will independently do it at different times. The block itself might only be a few hundred feet (10x quarter acre properties on each side) so it's extremely noisy for everyone on the block. Then factor in being kind of close to a fire house and there's a massively loud siren every day at noon and random sirens / fire trucks for emergencies. Oh you live 3 miles from a small airport? Ok, there's going to be planes flying in / out almost all the time. Oh yeah, did you know they do helicopter training every Monday and Thursday night from 8pm to 10pm, so now you get to have your house shaken every 10-15 minutes while a helicopter flies a few hundred feet over your block while doing laps. And you have trees too where Blue Jays love to pretty consistently squawk. That sounds like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6P7k4np0Js https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6P7k4np0Js, but it carries far. Once one of them starts, it's like a chain reaction for 15 minutes. Even with windows closed and headphones on it's easy to hear it. I've had to stop recording videos because even a dynamic mic (very directional) will pick it up. Suburbs are really loud.
- mannykannot 5y ago
  I feel the average leaf in our neighborhood gets blown off a lawn four or five times before it decays or gets bagged. It's a great business model! I suck up and chop the thicker drifts with an electric vacuum device, and mulch them. There is some noise, but no-one can hear it over the blowers. Two sound sources that don't bother me at all are songbirds and kids playing.
albrewer 5y ago
Don't forget circular saws, nail guns, and your neighbor's project car that hasn't had a muffler in 3 years.

theonething 5y ago

and the dogs. Don't forget about the fucking barking dogs that get left alone outside all day long and sometimes into the night as well.

WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
That and hours of bass. It's really hard to tell which one is worse.

moralestapia 5y ago

Over time, I've found that the most expensive real estate feature is silence.

throwaway378037 5y ago
Been looking at property in London recently due to a horrible renting situation, and can confirm: properties that are reasonably quiet are priced considerably higher for the same floor area/spec

aaron695 5y ago

letitbeirie 5y ago

I've seriously thought about going hiking with a raspi running something that really wants to get friendly with any Bluetooth devices in range.

spaetzleesser 5y ago

Pumping gas? Have some meaningless commercials blaring at you. Wait at the doctors? Have some hospital commercials blaring at you. A/C systems are often brutally loud.

ray__ 5y ago
Pro tip: one of the grey unlabeled buttons next to the screens on gas pumps mutes the audio. Muting those ads every time I pump gas feels like a subversive act in a dystopian Bladerunner-esqe society where ads are inescapable unless you know the hacks.
- reydequeso 5y ago
  Yes, it is usually the 2nd button from the top. I've usually found it on the right side.

crooked-v 5y ago

> Luxury apartment at $4k a month? No insulation between units, and the guy above you comes home at 2am and never takes his shoes off. With this one you're getting into the intersection with US cities' rabid opposition to actually building enough housing, so new units become labeled 'luxury' whether or not they're actually luxury, because zoning and permitting requirements push the prices of new units into the stratosphere.

mastercheif 5y ago
New construction apartments in NYC are horrid places to call a home. They’ve shrunk the average unit size by 100-200 sq/ft (10-20 sq/m), switched to “luxury vinyl plank” flooring, use PTAC HVAC units (the type that you would find at a motel), have paper thin walls between adjacent units, and to top it all off are shoddily constructed due to the rampant use of non-union labor which is working under unreasonable timelines to build out the apartments so the developer can start making money ASAP. The Long Island City neighborhood is ground zero for this. Studios going for $3k a month that are no bigger than a dorm room. And then there’s the noise pollution. The proliferation of delivery apps has caused an explosion in the number of gas powered scooters on the streets. Many of the delivery scooter riders enjoy “souping up” their rides by removing/modifying the mufflers and driving as recklessly as possible. Due to the giant holes in the walls left by the PTAC units you can hear them wizzing by every few minutes from 2PM to 11PM. And then there’s the “fart cars”, dirt bikes, and ATV gangs, but those have already been addressed by others.

shpongled 5y ago

Hiking is what gets me the most. I go outside to be in nature, not hear music. Not to mention that everyone owns earbuds these days...

halfdan 5y ago

As someone who had to travel to the bay area for years I'll add: Caltrain honking its way through all suburbs, even at night.

mrwh 5y ago
Oh my word the caltrain! I had no idea before I moved here. I live miles away from the track now, and I can still hear it.
occz 5y ago
This can be remedied with proper grade separation - when there are no crossings, no honking is necessary.

greggman3 5y ago

> guy above you comes home at 2am and never takes his shoes off He shouldn't have to IMO. Building codes should require buildings to be sound proof between units. Yea, I know that's dreaming but I've lived in such units. I once lived in an apartment in LA. It was the first apartment in my life that had an in-unit washer and dryer. I asked the guy showing me the apartment "I'll bet I shouldn't run that after 10pm". He responded "These apartments were built as condos and they have double concrete walls between units so your neighbors won't hear you. Feel free to run them anytime day or night". And, the 18 months I was there I never heard a noise from any other unit. Conversely, I lived in a fairly typical SF place. Older and not designed for sound proofing. It was so bad that I mostly stayed out of my bedroom because the just being in it the guy downstairs would complain. Basically all I ever did was walk in, climb in bed. When I woke up, get out of the room. I felt for the guy, it must have been like a drum but at the same time I shouldn't have not been able to live in my apartment (oh, and I didn't wear shoes). I had a guest room. Every single guest (friends, not AirBnB) would get yelled at their first night just trying to change out of their clothing into their pajamas. The funniest one was a girl moved in downstairs. One night at 3am I moved my bed about 4 inches. A single move not making a sound for more than 1-2 seconds. The next morning she came up to bitch me out of waking her up. I told her I didn't complain about hearing her masturbate every night. I just put on my headphones and checked in 20 minutes. She moved out the next day. I feel like the law should have made the landlord make that apartment more sound proof. In my current place there's an industrial air conditioner running on the building next door. It runs 24/7 even though no one has been in the building during COVID. With any window open it's around 60db which is fine maybe when you're awake but it sucks when you're drying to go to sleep. With the windows closed it basically sounds like someone is running a vacuum cleaner in the room next door, all night. Further, some, the city, or some company, comes by at 4am and empties trash cans. The pick them up and bang them. It takes them ~10 minutes to get them all. Everyone in the building has complained and AFAICT both of these are illegal. https://www.sfdph.org/dph/files/ehsdocs/ehsnoise/guidelinesnoiseenforcement.pdf https://www.sfdph.org/dph/files/ehsdocs/ehsnoise/guidelinesn... But so far it's been impossible to get anything enforced.

mschuster91 5y ago
> It runs 24/7 even though no one has been in the building during COVID. With modern buildings, where all windows and walls are completely airtight and there is no natural draft any more because of energy efficiency, the buildings would start to mold if you turned off the ventilation.

dan-robertson 5y ago

Conversely, if you turn on your tumble dryer after 11pm in Switzerland and your neighbours hear, expect them to call the police.

tpm 5y ago
That's the country of my dreams! Seriously though, people should understand that night is for sleeping and walls do not offer perfect sound insulation. Everything you do can be heard and can disturb someones sleep. I struggle with this all my life.
- shados 5y ago
  The problem is that lack of sleep is almost a badge of honor these days. Saying you need sleep makes you sound fussy/weak, when it's virtually as important as needing to drink or breath. We should be protecting sleep quality like we protect water quality...which I guess considering how bad the water is in certain parts, may not be the best analogy.
eertami 5y ago
>tumble dryer after 11pm Or on a Sunday... :) Although the washing machine/dryer are usually in a utility room in the basement, shared between everyone in the building, which makes it a bit harder to just turn on.

jraph 5y ago

> People are so unbelievably disrespectful with noise in the US What stroke me the most during my trip to the US (Chicago) was: - the constant police sirens - the fact that cars come with a feature that allows you to find them with their key by making them honk. Here it is forbidden to honk in cities (though people do it all the time, sigh).

WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
> the fact that cars come with a feature that allows you to find them with their key by making them honk. Equally awesome is a beepy, late-shift neighbor who's driveway is right by your bedroom window.

ubercore 5y ago

Moving from a mid-sized city in the Northeast to a mid-sized city in Norway (relatively big one for Norway) has really made me realize how loud cities are in the US!

poisonarena 5y ago

heh.. wait to you live anywhere in south america

RicoElectrico 5y ago

We call them "DJs without headphones" in Poland. They're [1] obnoxious in public transport. Now, I often considered speaking up, but figured out that if they're such a retard to do this, they probably won't listen and it could end up badly. [1] Or maybe had been, seems they're on decline. Albeit when powerful BT speakers were all the rage (like JBL Flip), they were overused in public spaces as well.

mdp2021 5y ago
> I often considered speaking up, but If you have to "slap"¹ someone, and you will have to least you live in the desert, you will have to learn how to do it and to do it properly - effectively, proportionately, optimally. If you don't, then it's downfall in your quality of live and everyone else, and the environment and property value. It's the foundation of civilization to pull each other up towards civilized behaviour. Those areas in which reciprocal correction left way to "anything goes", I have seen, have decayed to rubble (and from heights). (¹Yes, reference.)
- RicoElectrico 5y ago
  I don't get the "slap" reference. To be honest, my hesitation is based on the number of local news articles that surface every so often. There's an alarmingly high number of Google results when you search for "zwrócił uwagę pobili" (he made a remark, they have beaten him) [0] This may be in general a cultural factor. Even in non-violent contexts some people just do not want to be told what to do. I think Sarmatism [1] echoes to this day in many layers of the society in the form of ill-understood "freedom" [2] Now, I may be selling Polish society short, most people are reasonably polite and the above are deviations, not the norm. But these deviations are still visible. [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=zwr%C3%B3ci%C5%82+uwag%C4%99+pobili https://www.google.com/search?q=zwr%C3%B3ci%C5%82+uwag%C4%99... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarmatism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarmatism [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Liberty#Proverb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Liberty#Proverb
seattle_spring 5y ago
A lot of folks inexplicably defend these "DJs without headphones." I've seen some go so far as to claim being against them is an act of, yes, racism.

oliv__ 5y ago

Glad to know I'm not alone: noise affects me disproportionately (both positive and negative -- good music is bliss to me) and the US definitely feels like the wild west when it comes to noise control

amelius 5y ago

> People are so unbelievably disrespectful with noise in the US. People from the US even speak louder :)